Say no to election violence – kid musician tells Nigerians

Violence By Moses Omorogieva Lagos, Feb. 17, 2019 (NNN) 12 year-old kid musician Oziomachukwu Chukwujama, popularly known as Ozzy Bosco, has appealed to Nigerians, particularly adult electorates to remain calm and avoid violent acts during the elections. Ozzybosco who made the appeal in a statement made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NNN) on Sunday, noted that he may be a child, but he had the interest of the country at heart. “Say no to election violence. Although I’m a child, my nation is right in my heart. Say No to Election Violence!!,” he stressed. OzzyBosco a songwriter, recording artiste, stage performer and model was born on 7th Jan. 2007, to Mr and Mrs Chukwujama in Lagos. He is hailed as the most successful child performer in Africa, after winning the Nigerian Kids Got Talent in 2011. He had worked steadily to make a name for himself and to become the biggest performer in Africa. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the early hours of Saturday shifted the Presidential and National Assembly election to Feb. 23 and the Governorship and State Houses of Assembly election to March 9 citing logistic challenges. (NNN) MIO/LAB ======== Edited by Lydia Beshel

The suspension of the tennis season was last extended until the end of July but Djokovic, a three-times champion in New York, is not sure the tournament will go ahead.

“I had a telephone conversation with the leaders of world tennis. There were talks about the continuation of the season, mostly about the United States Open due in late August, but it’s not known whether it will be held,” Djokovic said.

“The rules that they told us that we would have to respect to be there, to play at all, they are extreme. We would not have access to Manhattan, we would have to sleep in hotels at the airport, to be tested twice or three times per week.

“Also, we could bring one person to the club which is really impossible. I mean, you need your coach, then a fitness trainer, then a physiotherapist.”

Djokovic suggested economic factors were behind the push to play the tournament.

“They want the tournament to go ahead at any cost for economic reasons, which I understand,” he said. “But the question is, how many players are willing to accept those terms.”

On Friday it announced that “Selma” would be free for rental for the remainder of June, saying that had been planned earlier this week.

“We hope this small gesture will encourage people throughout the country to examine our nation’s history and reflect on the ways that racial injustice has infected our society,” Paramount said in a statement.

He noted that such policies are rooted “in the theory of their exceptionality and the strategy of hegemonic and global domination.”

The senior Yugoslavian diplomat believes that double standards are the source of many problems in global relations, while obtaining peace, stability and prosperity requires all countries to abandon such practices.

As for the United States itself, Jovanovic said racial discrimination is deeply rooted in the history of the country’s socio-economic and political practice, and that segregation is still visible in the distribution of wealth and availability of health protection.

“The present problem should be treated in much broader contexts and only a systematic approach could deliver the sustainable solution and social stability,” he said.

“They accused some countries of interfering in their electoral process, without any proof, but the United States is particularly interfering in the electoral process all over the world by bribing political parties and blackmailing politicians,” he pointed out.

Costantinos, also professor of public policy at the Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia, stressed that China is probably the only nation that can address the challenges faced by the global South in improving economic governance and curtailing corruption.

The continental disease control and prevention agency, which noted that the virus has so far spread into 54 African countries, also disclosed that more than 75,083 people who had been infected with COVID-19 had recovered across the continent so far.

In particular, collaborating in stopping travel, sharing PPE (personal protective equipment) and sharing experiences of the virus, are fundamental to successfully control COVID-19 on a global scale, according to Dr Bamford.

“Seeing how interconnected our global society and economy are, essentially everybody is getting damaged by this and I think we have to work together and more importantly we can learn from other countries,” said Dr Bamford.

In a study published in the medical journal The Lancet last month, a Chinese team reported that their COVID-19 vaccine candidate has been found to be safe, well-tolerated, and able to generate an immune response against SARS-CoV-2 in humans in phase 1 clinical trial.

“I think we’ve got a lot to learn from China. China has a lot of scientific expertise, they have some vaccine candidates and they’ve got some therapeutic candidates and we now have people to share and collaborate on those,” he said.

Dr Bamford believes the world is getting closer to an effective drug or vaccine for COVID-19 with each experiment, but the chances of a valid vaccine by the end of the year remain slim,

“I think we’ll have an idea of the vaccines that are most likely to work, and the ones that are least likely to work — and hopefully we’ll have an idea of how safe they are and then hopefully we’ll be getting them into a large number of patients,” said Dr Bamford.

“I’m confident that at some point we will see a vaccine and this will have an impact, but if I’m more realistic — I don’t think it will be this year.”

As part of the global efforts to find solutions to the pandemic, a team at the University of Oxford is also carrying out clinical trial on a COVID-19 vaccine candidate. Leading scientist of the team are optimistic that they can complete the multi-phased trial at an unprecedented pace.

“We have to make sure that these vaccines are safe and effective and we’re able to give them to essentially billions of people. This does take a really long period of time, but of course we’re trying to do things as fast as possible but, of course, you don’t want to do anything too fast as you really have to make sure they do work and things are safe,” said Dr Bamford.

In addition to vaccines, researcher around the world are also looking for effective drugs to treat the infection.

Since April, Dr Bamford and his team in Belfast have been working on a new drug to target the coronavirus. Although in its early stages of development, the drug is intended to be given to patients at hospital who are sick from COVID-19.

Development of vaccines or drugs comes as many countries around the world are starting to ease restrictions on movement.

“We’ve now conquered that first wave…There’s a couple of countries who have been in this similar position before us and I think that there is a real risk that we could go back to what we saw in the preceding months. We’re not in the early stages, we’re somewhere in the middle and it’s a bit uncertain,” said Dr Bamford.

“The first wave, we predicted it would be completely catastrophic with hundreds of thousands of people dying. That was only if lockdown wasn’t brought in. I think we’ve shown that we know how to stop this virus and that is through lockdown, social distancing and increased hygiene and as importantly, this test, trace and isolate procedure,” said Dr Bamford.

“I think, when we bring all those together then we should be able to reduce some aspects of lockdown and social distancing but also suppress any virus that is there ongoing, but, of course, this is a long battle. We’re doing this to hold off the virus until we have a new therapy or a new vaccine that is safe and effective,” he said.

“Hopefully we can eradicate it or bring a vaccine that we can give to everybody in the population. But then the really important thing going forward is protecting the world from another pandemic like what we’re seeing with SARS-CoV-2,” he said.

The death of George Floyd reveals the double standards of Washington, Indonesian political analyst Irwansyah said in a recent interview with Xinhua.

Irwansyah, a lecturer in political science at the University of Indonesia, said that an unarmed black man being suffocated to death by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota late last month was not a rare occurrence in the United States, a country diverse in races and ethnic groups.

“This brings people to view such incidents (as) caused by systemic racism which underpins the recurring police brutality incidents,” said Irwansyah, adding that racism lies deep in the country’s social, economic and political system and has been acknowledged many times by the government, civil society activists and academics throughout the nation’s history, he said.

The danger and power of white nationalism and supremacy in United States politics, he said, is seemingly concerning and obvious to people around the world.

Other kinds of racism and sectarianism also emerge continuously to shape the life of United States citizens, he noted.

“This indicates the racism problem is not only seriously threatening the daily life of regular people, but also seriously vital to support the power system in the United States,” he said.

Floyd’s death has caused a wave of protests across the country. Thousands of people took to the streets amid clashes with police and the National Guard.

Irwansyah noted the protests in the United States are not only caused by racism, but also other factors such as economic inequality and the failed COVID-19 response.

“Especially since the economic financial crisis in 2008, the problem of economic inequality has become more severe. A sense of injustice among people from different social categories including races, inter-generations, and classes have been growing and widening,” he said.

The announcement of the death of Droukdel comes almost six months after former colonial power France and regional states combined their military forces under one command structure to focus on fighting Islamic State-linked militants in the border regions of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso.

“With 62.37 per cent of the end-use customers on estimated billing, huge collection losses due to customer apathy have posed a serious challenge to the viability and sustainability of the industry.”

It said in comparison to the third quarter of 2019, the numbers of registered and metered customers increased by 699,850 (7.23 per cent) and 22,825 (0.59 per cent) respectively.

NERC said the increase in the number of registered customers was attributable to the on-going enumeration exercise by DisCos while the increase in metered customers was due to the roll-out of meters under the Meter Asset Provider (MAP) schemes.

It said: “The commission notes with concern that the additional 22,825 end-use customers’ meters installed during the fourth quarter fell significantly from the 83,768 meters installed during the third quarter.